As someone well steeped in a medical and science background, I can't really recommend an ionized water system over RO. No offense. Of course all unstudied things remain a mystery, but sometimes there are reasons we don't study things, because they don't make a lot of sense. Water is an extraordinarily weak buffer. You can sway its pH by electrolysis, but upon contact with any small amount of acid or base, it will quickly lose whatever pH it has. Read, stomach acid vs ionized water... stomach acid wins. If your goal is better tasting water, then carbon may be fine. If you want to remove tasteless chemicals and toxins, maybe RO is for you. The claim that there are 80,000 chemicals and toxins in the water supply at one time or another is sort of like claiming that every once in a while somebody gets hit by a bus, or struck by lighting. Yes, they are very real things, like chemicals in water, that may cause harm. But living your life in fear of such things can make people do extreme things, and waste a lot of money. You are not going to stay in your house, and avoid all roads to avoid lighting and buses, nor should every house install an RO system "to be safe." If your city has a bad track record for maintaining its water, you live near a clearly unregulated pesticide production facility, or you live on a farm with a well that has fluctuating water quality, it may be that an RO system is for you for "safety reasons." I still maintain an RO system is for us water snobs that not only want better tasting water, but clear ice, clear tea, and better water for our plants and high maintenance fish....

Andy C said..."impractical and very expensive." Understatement, actually. An RO system sized to provide normal volume and pressure for showers or other typical household uses would be huge, complicated, and astonishingly expensive. Would also require special piping throughout the entire system. Unless there is some special requirement and you've got personal expertise and LOTS of money and room, I would encourage you to abandon this thinking. Would suggest whole-house water softener and small RO unit for drinking-water supply otherwise.

If you're on a well then why would you have a city water report? Are you on a community well? Regardless of what any water treatment salesperson says... you need to get a comprehensive water test from a certified independent lab. Then we'll know what needs to be treated from a safety standpoint and what you want to be treated from a nice water standpoint and then we can can speak intelligently about what is needed. I'm on 45 gpg hard water with considerable TDS and just replaced a 20 year old A.O. Smith LP water heater that was functioning properly. I drained it every 6 months and my water softener paid for itself many times over with what I saved not replacing water heaters every 3 years or so as my neighbors do. I replaced it because I didn't want to have to use one of the new regulation water heaters down the road so I scored one of the last of the old regulation ones. In 20 years I've never had to repair or replace any water using appliance and never so much as a faucet or a hose washer.

hdbarrera is right on this one; they are not compatible. BUT there is a solution if you are handy! I built a new low waste (not zero waste) system by purchasing a new membrane from Pentair (the GRO-50EN) on Amazon for about $50 that is 1 to 1 instead of 1 to 5 permeate-to-waste. I re-used my filter carriers and tank and just had to buy a variety of fittings and some tubing to build the new system (less than $100 total). If you go this route make SURE you get a 150 ml/min (10 GPD) flow restrictor on the waste line - this is what keeps the system efficient (its all the membrane needs). If you go this route, you'll also need: an Automatic Shutoff Valve a Check Valve Misc 1/4" fittings (you can buy them individually once you know what you need, but this is very inexpensive) an air gap faucet (or you can install an air gap adapter, but this faucet is REALLY nice and a HUGE upgrade from the Watts unit). A drain saddle (attaches to your sink drain to dump the waste water) A 10 GPD (150 ml/min) flow restrictor You will also need some 1/4" tubing for the main lines and some 3/8" line for the drain from the faucet to the sink's drain. The downside of this system is that it does create some waste (1 gallon waste for every gallon of drinking water) but it is MUCH better than all the other systems out there which waste from 4 to 6 gallons for every gallon of drinking water. The upside is that it is MUCH more compact and also absolutely silent. A complete list of the parts I ordered on Amazon for this build is here A system diagram that I created after a LOT of research is here The only tricky part is making sure you make the high side connections (red on the diagram) on the ASOV correctly. The low side connections don't matter.